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In Light of Shadows: More Gothic Tales by Izumi Kyoka

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"In Light of Shadows" collects three more Gothic tales from Japanese master Izumi Kyoka. He is not an easy writer to get into, as is style is deep and complex, and filled with allusion to classic Japanese literature that you probably haven't read. However, the skillful translation of Charles Inouye has provided a bridge into Kyoka's world, allowing Westerners to experience the sad beauty of his stories for the first time.

Kyoka's work is of extraordinary depth, and are the kind of tales that muddle around in your head long after you have turned the final page, trying to figure out if you actually understood them. Then, you are drawn back for a second, and a third reading, with each time a little more of the mystery being made clear.

"A Song by Lantern Light" weaves together two storylines, both of which are influenced by two separate Japanese classics, the travelogue "Shank's Mare" are the Noh play "The Diver." Two gentlemen, Yajirobei and Nejibei travel the same route as "Shank's Mare," constantly dropping quotes from the famous novel and trying their best to re-create the circumstances of the trip. Intermixed with this is the melancholy tale of a nameless, wandering singer and a beautiful woman, Omie. A haunting tale of redemption.

"A Quiet Obsession" is Kyoka's attempt at an old-fashioned Japanese ghost story. A traveler visits an ancient inn, where the bath is haunted by the ghost of a beautiful woman. Slowly, her sad story unfolds in an unexpected way.

"The Heartvine" is a story with its own story. Kyoka was dying of lung cancer, and he knew full well that this would be his final tale. A young man considers suicide, but is saved by the intervention of a young woman who killed herself that same night. It is a story of life and death, the kind only a dying man could write.

At the end of the book, there are also individual essays of the three stories, putting them into historical and cultural perspective. Inouye's passion for Kyoka's writing is infectious, and it is wonderful the way he lays bare the secrets of the stories. I can only hope that this is just the next volume in a continuing series of Kyoka stories translated by Inouye.

This collection of stories by Izumi Kyoka is every bit as excellent as "Japanese Gothic Tales"--possibly better. The haunting moods that Izumi crafts are unlike most anything else I've come across in literature, resembling Poe but more subdued, less horrific. Less dramatic yet more moving. Unlike so many Japanese writers of the early 20th century, Izumi does not throw out the fine literary tradition of Japan in favor of the latest ill-digested trends from Europe, but draws on the best of both traditions to create something altogether more than the sum of its parts. This is probably why he's misunderstood by both his detratctors and his supporters as "quintessentially Japanese" or whatnot. Nope, he's just quintessentially himself, like all the authors we keep reading and re-reading generation after generation,

All three of the fine stories here are distinct in a number of ways too, giving the reader some sense of the scope of Izumi's talent. "A Song by Lantern Light" is one of the more structurally complex of his works, a moving tale of salvation and reconciliation. "A Quiet Obsession" is the closest thing here to a good old ghost story, but the convoluted layers of narration and the sort of time warp effect of the story make for a real mental bender. And "The Heartvine" is easily the most intense; the guy knew he was dying as he wrote it, and you can really feel that he put his whole heart and soul into this partially autobiographical final testament to his readers.

The virtuousi translation work by Charles Inouye should truly be commended, and his essays afterwards are thought-provoking and insightful; he should be thanked too for putting these at the end so that there are no spoilers.

Discovering the work of Izumi Kyoka is like coming across a fall daffodil beneath wind-blown autumn leaves--brilliantly bright and rich, yet delicate and hidden. Even though his collected works are published in 29 volumes in Japan, very limited selection of these have reached the English speaking reader. The two volumes by Charles Shiro Inouye, Japanese Gothic Tales and In Light of Shadows, contain truly fascinating stories, but once you are done reading them, you have to face the frustration that there isn't much else by Izumi Kyoka out there, unless of course, you can read Japanese.

In comparison to the acutely observant and delightfully perverse Tanizaki, the gentle Kawabata, or the obsessive Mishima, Izumi Kyoka comes out as a true master of the floating world. From the moment you immerse into his stories, you are transported into a specific geographical location, with its colors, the food it is famous for, its flora and fauna. And all this done masterfully, with an impressive eloquence and economy of words. "A gust of wind blew through the pines, and two or three crimson maple leaves sailed by, as if bursting into flame." Kyoka's characters emerge out of this background drawn powerfully with a few strokes. There is poetry, there is music, color, customs and subtlety, that put the reader in a dreamy state of mind.

The current volume is a selection of three stories about travelers. A song by lantern light tells of a lonely young itinerant musician and two older men, who happen to stay the night in a noodle shop and an adjacent inn, respectively. There is a connection between them. Quiet obsession is about a single traveler who desperately tries to take a bath in the inn where he is staying, and cannot. Finally, the last story, Heartvine, is a journey on a temple staircase towards a grave and a symbolic journey through an old man's life's memories. It is very typical of Kyoka to write a story within a story within a story, which gives his work further depth. It is somewhere in the middle of a story that the different lines of narrative come together to form a coherent whole. By that time though, you find yourself in a magical landscape of beauty and I think, the impact of the storyline, once revealed, would have been diminished, had not this background of unity between nature, tradition and heroes already been established with utmost mastery.